


I Like You Like I Like My Coffee: Strong, Bitter, And Absolutely Roasted (Among Other Lies We Tell Ourselves)

by ribbontype



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Canon Compliant, Die Hard References, F/F, Hijinks & Shenanigans, M/M, Post-Game(s), coffee shop au without the coffee shop or being au, teen coming of age road trip to the end of the universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-22 23:20:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8305114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ribbontype/pseuds/ribbontype
Summary: “Your natural state is enlightenment. Everything else you've ever been told about yourself is a lie. We are trying to wake ourselves up, because we come from source energy and we are ALL one. We have to realize that our brothers and sisters that we are seeing in the dream, are mere reflections of our inner self. Yin and yang, love and hate. People that we dislike, are mere reflections of our own character defects. People that we like and love are true successful manifestations of our deepest most inner self. We are beings of light. Our mission, is to be creation, and create positive energy on spaceship Earth.”- Troll Ted Cruz, 30 Microwave Recipes So Easy Your Lusus Could Prepare Them!
 
Two boys and three girls find themselves on the run from teen angst and stagnation.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Khemi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khemi/gifts).



> Permanently unfinished. Sorry. Hope you enjoy, at least. Dedicated to Khemi, who's always there to help with my writing when I need it. And boy, do I need it.

**I LIKE YOU LIKE I LIKE MY COFFEE: STRONG, BITTER, AND ABSOLUTELY ROASTED (AMONG OTHER LIES WE TELL OURSELVES)**

  
  


“ _ Your natural state is enlightenment. Everything else you've ever been told about yourself is a lie. We are trying to wake ourselves up, because we come from source energy and we are ALL one. We have to realize that our brothers and sisters that we are seeing in the dream, are mere reflections of our inner self. Yin and yang, love and hate. People that we dislike, are mere reflections of our own character defects. People that we like and love are true successful manifestations of our deepest most inner self. We are beings of light. Our mission, is to be creation, and create positive energy on spaceship Earth.” _

_ \- Troll Ted Cruz, 30 Microwave Recipes So Easy Your Lusus Could Prepare Them! _

  
  


* * *

  
  


If you were to ask John Egbert what his biggest fear was he would probably pause for a moment, and think, with a little hum slipping out.

  
  


“I don’t know,” he would say. “Dying, I guess.”

  
  


On the other hand, if you were to ask Dirk Strider, your answer would come nigh instantaneously.

  
  


“Fear is a defense mechanism used to elicit an appropriate reaction when faced with a situation the brain doesn’t understand. I try to go into any situation prepared.”

  
  


Both of these answers are lies.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Dirk Strider is two parts Snow Crash to one part Icarus. Daggers and knives and cold dystopian sci-fi, left trapped to bake in the sun in the middle of an unforgiving ocean. John Egbert is familiar with neither of these stories. Had he been acquainted with the former, he would have been bemused by the comparison of Dirk to Hiro Protagonist, self proclaimed greatest swordsman in the world, if you had brought it to his attention.

  
  


As it stands the unspoken comparison is lost on him. That’s alright. It isn’t the sort of thing he thinks about anyway.

  
  


Dirk thinks about it. Dirk thinks of his life like a narrative; he will be the hero someday, maybe. Bbut he won’t. The ship for heroism has long since sailed so sometimes he thinks about John instead. Recent developments have made this one of the more interesting topics Dirk's brain can occupy itself with.

  
  


John is the hero - archetypal and consistent. His is not a story with murky waters of self doubt and existential crises. His is a story of growth and grandeur, shedding his childhood exoskeleton to be reborn as something new entirely. Superman’s apotheosis with a splash of ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret’.

  
  


Of course, this isn’t the first thing Dirk learns about John. Initial observances tend to be far more casual, less focused on cosmic significance and a little bit more tuned in to shallow characteristics. Small talk has a time and a place, which happen to beautifully correspond with the current place and time because it’s the dawn of a new day and it’s time for new things to happen.

  
  


* * *

  
  


The new universe is everything they’d hoped it would be: safe. It spoke to how cruel the past few years have been to them that the only thing they could bother hoping for was safety and stability. The sky was blue, sometimes;, the grass was green, in some places, and everything else was just close enough to normal that if you didn’t squint too hard you could pretend everything was sunshine and daisies.

  
  


Things grew there. Unfamiliar things, but after trial and error, edible enough. Dirk digs his fingers into the soil leaving thin, deep trenches in the displaced dirt.

  
  


_ It would be so easy - simple motor, equidistant spikes on a gear and treads on either side to stabilize it. Would take much less time. Wouldn’t have to get dirt on your hands.  _ Dirk wonders why he hasn’t done it yet and finds no answer. He pokes a few more holes in a straight, orderly row and then one by one drops a sprinkling of seeds into each, mechanically. His hands are sweaty from a day of relentless sunshine but all he can do to find enough quiet is leave.

  
  


Even when it’s quiet he can  _ feel  _ what the other people around him are thinking, their thoughts crowding the air with the same electricity you can smell right before a storm.

  
  


No matter how deep into the forest or far out into the plains he goes it’s never  _ quiet enough. _

  
  


Dirk Strider is not used to a world of noise and life. He has never felt the presence of living things, not like this. It’s borderline asphyxiation from the sheer  _ presence  _ of things. Another soul is an uncomfortable thing to be aware of.

  
  


He is tired.

  
  


A breeze punctures the humid air and solidifies in front of him. John. He grins like he always does, genuine yet with the sort of vacancy that would suggest it’s less of a reaction and more of a default setting.

  
  


John had woken up early this morning, like he had every morning. He doesn’t sleep easy anymore and when the sun drips in thickly from between the slats on his blinds he finds himself lying in bed, waiting for nothing.

  
  


There is nothing to wait for. There is nothing left to happen. There is nothing more.

  
  


He does whatever he can to be useful but there’s nothing else to do.

  
  


In one hand, a chipped white mug with faded lettering suggesting something to do with a rather large bear traveling for show in the early 20th century. In the other, a simple green one with cartoonish curlicue flowers.

  
  


“Morning, Dirk!”

  
  


Dirk looks up from his sweaty dirt-stained, crouched position on the floor and makes a begrudgingly inquisitive noise. John chooses to think of it as a friendly hello. John chooses to think of many things as friendly hellos, such as a groan stifled by a pillow, or having the nearest convenient object whipped at his head with a cry of ‘ _ go back to bed John it’s 6 am!’. _

 

John and Dirk don't talk much, and they never talk alone, and John really thinks that that should be remedied already, because, come on! He's even had a conversation or two with the one 3D glasses troll whose name he can never remember.

  
  


“Man you’re up pretty early! I thought I was the only one who was gonna be up but then Ii saw that the door to your room was open so I came to find you. Here.”

  
  


Dirk grabs the green mug. Stares at it for a moment.

  
  


“I’m not up early.”

  
  


“Hahaha,” He doesn't quite laugh – just breathes out the words 'ha ha ha', light and airy. “Most people consider getting up like, half an hour after the sun rises to be pretty early! Especially because we’re teenagers and stuff. We’re biologically wired to want to sleep late. Trust me this is SCIENCE.”

  
  


Heat spreads uncomfortably from the black-brown swill, trailing up Dirk’s fingers and wrapping around his forearms. It tethers him to the moment.

  
  


“No, I mean I’m up late. Haven’t slept yet.”

  
  


John likes to hear Dirk talk. He likes talking with his friends! It's so much better than text in so many ways. Not that he’d ever mention it to Dirk's face. He’s not being shy or coy or anything other than polite - in an uncharacteristically accurate assumption, John reaches the conclusion that Dirk’s syntax isn’t something he likes attention drawn to. Dirk enunciates each word with medical precision, every syllable clearly laid out as its own sound, a voice completely devoid of any accent.

  
  


The result of someone who taught himself to talk with a dictionary in one hand and the kind of educational tapes meant for kindergartners sounding out letters in the background. If he's really paying attention, John can hear some of the same patient over-pronunciation in his own voice, a holdover from the speech impediment that years of practice had mostly gotten rid of.

 

Jake – and he's pretty sure his alternate self – had the same vocal affliction, only he hadn't had anyone to impress or anyone to correct him and had kept it, for better or worse.

  
  


Sometimes John thinks about Jake and Jade and Dirk and Roxy but most of the time he doesn’t because when he thinks too hard about all of the little things they had to learn by themselves he starts to feel a bit overwhelmed and then he just starts to feel a little bit guilty so most of the time John doesn’t think about Dirk and the boy he was, all alone in the middle of the ocean teaching himself to speak and Roxy surrounded by waves and chaos and booze and Jade and Jake alone on their islands with nothing but the monsters and the ghosts of the only people they’ve ever had and he goes back to thinking about things that are easier to think about like wow isn’t the sky blue today and hey, Dirk drinks his coffee black too maybe he should find Dirk and bring him some coffee since he’s already awake?

  
  


“You haven't slept? Oh geez, I pretty much pass out on the nearest flat surface like, once every 8 hours. How can you go that long without sleeping?”

  
  


Dirk shrugs.

  
  


“That’s not really much of an answer.”

  
  


Dirk sips his coffee, which is considered coffee in much the same way Velveeta is considered cheese, because he doesn’t know what to say. Formulating replies is much easier when you’re given enough time to think about it. Such is not the case, as John Egbert is still currently standing in front of Dirk, hovering (literally) awkwardly and looking down at him expectantly.

  
  


Dirk is at least 73% sure that that is what an expectant face looks like but normal people aren’t actors and they don’t actively try to express subtle emotion through their facial features. Real people do not look and act like people in movies. This is inconvenient for Dirk. He doesn’t have much else in the way of reference.

  
  


“So, uhh. How’s the coffee?”

  
  


“It tastes like a level one slime monster from a generic indie MMORPG took a steaming shit in a cup. It’s amazing how a substance which is obviously a liquid can still manage to have the texture of someone else’s mucus as it goes down your throat, despite flowing like water. I’d love to see a study of the thermodynamics behind this shit too because no matter what it’s either tongue-scaldingly hot or ice cold, despite being left at room temperature. Y’know what? Why the hell are we drinking this shit instead of revolutionizing modern technology with it. Insulate a box and shove some stray cups of “coffee” in there and we’ve got ourselves a refrigerator.”

  
  


“Hah! I just wanted to make sure you took it black.”

  
  


“Oh. Yeah, I do.”

  
  


“Me too!”

  
  


Growing up, Dirk had coffee beans and hot water and so that’s how he learned to take his coffee.

  
  


Growing up, coffee was the only thing in John’s house his father didn’t pump full of sugar and so that’s how he learned to want his coffee.

  
  


The rest of the day happens.

  
  


* * *

  
  


If you were to ask John Egbert what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, he wouldn’t have a good answer for you.

  
  


On the other hand, if you were to ask Dirk Strider, he wouldn’t have an answer at all.

  
  


* * *

  
  


The next day brings fair weather and then next day brings John with two more cups of ‘coffee’ in two equally hodgepodge mugs which might actually be the same ones from yesterday. He hands one to Dirk, who doesn’t look up for an amount of time longer than is necessary. He doesn’t say anything. John does.

 

“Good morning Dirk!”

  
  


“Yeah. Good morning.”

  
  


“So . . . uhh.” John pauses. He doesn’t know what to say but he has yet to see a silence be comfortable when Dirk is involved - there’s something inherently tense about Dirk’s silence. There’s something inherently tense about Dirk in a way there isn’t with Roxy. Dirk Strider does not have years of alcoholism working alongside an already amiable personality to aid in his social graces. Dirk Strider has nothing. At the top of his game, his social expertise is comparable to the physical grace of an African elephant. On an average day he is completely unapproachable to anyone without prior insight to the boy’s psyche.

  
  


“. . . You get good sleep last night?”

  
  


“Still haven’t slept. Been busy.”

  
  


“Haha . . . maybe I should stop bringing you coffee!” John’s laugh comes out just a little too loud and stops just a little too short.

  
  


“Yeah, maybe.” and the inflection is useless because John still can’t tell if the slight bitterness seeping into the syllables is just how Dirk is or if he just isn’t welcome here.

  
  


Not being welcome usually does not stop John from doing things so he sits down on the part of the ground that’s still grassy and watches Dirk hunch over the ground and keep working, sipping on his coffee every now and then and tangling his fingers in the soft green carpeting of plantlife.

  
  


“It’s . . . gonna rain soon.” John says, for lack of anything else but the  _ quiet.  _ “Maybe you should head inside.”

  
  


Dirk glances up and his shoulders stiffen a bit and he stands up, meticulously brushing the dirt off his knees.

  
  


“Yeah. Okay.”

  
  


Dirk’s legs are long and John struggles to keep up for a moment or so, trotting after him on stumpier limbs, but John’s never much one for effort so he lets himself float. He’s only a few inches off the ground - just enough to match Dirk’s height - and he corkscrew spins around a couple of time for good measure.

  
  


He’s surprised when Dirk’s the one to break silence.

  
  


“Do you like it here?”

  
  


“Oh! Hmm. That’s kind of a weird question. I mean yeah! I guess I do. It’s really pretty here and stuff. Do you?”

  
  


He shrugs. Awkwardly. Stiffly. It’s a conscious movement, not something learned from years of imitation and practice like a normal person, like a  _ normal _ child. John can see the effort behind it, behind Dirk’s robotic movements and he wants to hug him.

  
  


“I don’t have a whole lot to compare it to.”

  
  


He’d wrap his arms tightly around Dirk’s midsection and he’d look him in the eye and he’d tell him that he’s doing a great job.

  
  


Dirk’s not like Jane, who’s the only one among her group to have had a relatively sociable childhood. He’s not like Jake where John can (and will) just full body tackle him whenever he look like he needs a pick me up. He’s not even like Roxy, who, despite having a childhood which was the closest approximation to his, is actually  _ open _ about her desire for affection. She’s a hugger, just like John is, and the two of them spend plenty time curled up on couches together, normally with Jade and Calliope too.

  
  


He has a feeling he’s not quite at the level with Dirk where either of those things would be a good idea.

  
  


“Yeah, I guess you really don’t, huh?”

  
  


“Mm.”

  
  


The conversation is dropped. There is nothing left to say.

 

* * *

  
  


Exactly one week goes by before John tries to talk to Dirk again. He comes with coffee every day, though, always finding Dirk and always missing - or blatantly ignoring, Dirk isn’t sure - the fact that Dirk doesn’t want to be found. He smiles. He hands Dirk a cup (green, with the flowers. always the same one. He’s not sure of the significance of this.). He leaves.

  
  


On the seventh day he takes Dirk by the hand and pulls him away from his work despite his protests. They walk almost a mile, back to the plot of land Dirk was seeding in the beginning.

  
  


“Look!” John beams, pointing to the mounds of dirt. Dirk kneels on the filthy ground and presses his face into the soil.

  
  


“Well fuck me with a rusty spade, that’s a plant.”

  
  


It’s small and green as plants normally are, with tiny leaf shaped leaves. Someone with more of an eye for plants could have told Dirk that this would someday be kale. If Dirk had known this, he wouldn't have planted that particular set of seeds. Fuck kale.

  
  


“Yeah! I saw it when I was watering them earlier today. It’s been dry, y’know, no rain? So anyway I’ve just been doing a little sprinkling over here and look! It grew and everything. That’s so neat.” John pokes softly at leaf. It’s smaller than his pinky nail.”It’s almost kind of cute, don’t you think?”

  
  


“It’s a plant.”

  
  


“Yes, Dirk! It is a plant! I am pretty sure that everyone here is clear on that..”

  
  


Dirk stands. Dusts himself off.

  
  


“Well, you don’t have to worry about picking up the slack for me anymore. I’ll make sure to keep them watered.” and before John can say anything else, he’s gone. Dirk has zero frame of reference for John's intentions, and is making his very best efforts to scorn his company. It has no observable effect.

  
  


Later that day, the rains come.

  
  


* * *

  
  


They’re chopping vegetables for dinner in the kitchen. Jane, John, and their mutual fatherson are the only three even remotely capable of standard domesticity so the burden of things like dinner and adding fabric softener to the dish washer falls on them. They slice in comfortable silence, all of them familiar with the scene in slightly different ways. John tells Jane and Dad the stories Nanna told him and Jade on the ship, about the soldier she married, about her time as a nurse in the army, about her daring assault of japes on none other than the batterwitch her very self, about what his father was like as a young child. They return the favor with stories from their own timeline: jokes passed down family lineages and lines they can remember from his episodes of  _ Night Court.  _ They serve soup in a hollowed out pumpkins that night and everyone enjoys a laugh at Jade’s expense as she gnaws on the soggy rind of the gourd.

  
  


Dinners are always loud.

  
  


9 humans, 8 of them children, 6 trolls, and a cherub. (Walk into a bar and - John can’t quite fill in the punchline but there’s a joke there, definitely!) They speak to whoever is near enough to hear them and they converse freely about their various projects. Jane and Karkat listen attentively while Kanaya extrapolates on the construction of the new brooding caverns, only interrupting with their two (or four, in Karkat’s case) cents when they can be of help. Jane, as she’s prone to saying, considers it the least she can do as a Hero of Life to make sure Kanaya’s plans come to fruition.

  
  


John sits and listens and glances around the table as he tries to soak in the newest details of his friends’ machinations. It’s too much. Everyone seems to have found . . .  _ something, _ to occupy their time, be it Rose, Dave, and Jake’s increasingly abstract and disturbing short films, or Aradia, Vriska and Terezi’s CSI forensics laboratory. Sollux and Roxy have their ~Ath coding, and succeeded in hacking the universe briefly to allow the unsuspecting carapacians to clip through their own furniture. Jade and Calliope have been pouring over starmaps and telescopes, in preparation something far too secret and witchy for the layman to know about. Everyone has found their niche.

  
  


Everyone except him.

  
  


And Dirk.

  
  


And that’s when John picks something out to occupy him full-time.

  
  


* * *

  
  


_ Be light. Be friendly. Be gentle. _

  
  


“Y’know . . . I like my coffee how I like my men.” He says, one day, swill in hand.

  
  


“Black?” Replies Dirk, promptly, not paying enough attention to take the time to filter. John laughs for long enough, eyes screwed tight, that Dirk can pretend the other boy didn’t notice the large and mouth-occupying sip of coffee he took.

  
  


“Well, I was gonna say ground up and in the freezer! But I like your answer a little bit better.” He elbows Dirk and smiles but Dirk still can still feel the burning in his cheeks long after he’s alone.

  
  


He twirls the battered green mug and buries his head back in the sand, one seed at a time.

  
  


* * *

  
  


If you were to ask John if he was happy he’d scoff, in more of an affronted way than a mean one, and say ‘Yeah, duh, of course! Why wouldn't I be?’

  
  


If you were to ask Dirk, his answer would be more or less the same.

  
  


* * *

  
  


_ Be polite. Be relaxed. Be amiable. _

  
  


Dirk tries to stop himself from tensing as the Breeze riles up around him, signaling his morning coffee delivery. It gets a little bit easier each day. He says ‘thank you’ when he takes the cup and John beams back with a ‘no problem’ and settles himself into the grass.

  
  


“Dirk,” Says John, tone unidentifiable, body loose, hands resting neatly in his lap. His windsock hood pools under his head and Dirk takes in his  uncannyuncanney valley features, so familiar and still so alien.

  
  


“Yes?”

  
  


“Why are you planting those seeds? I mean the carapacians have farms and everything. This is kind of useless.” He says. John's skin is darker than Jakes and lighter than Jane's. He has Jake's almond-shaped eyes and Jane's wide lips and broad nose. His hair is somewhere between Jane's kinky and Jake's thicky and wavy and it hangs around his face in constant indecision with itself. It's like looking at a childhood photograph of someone you only vaguely remember from high school.

  
  


“Thanks for your enlightening criticism of how I spend my personal time,” Dirk snaps. “I hadn’t considered that my particular brand of R&R has less intrinsic value than, say, that time Dave tried to teach us all how to play soccer but didn’t know any of the rules himself. Or are we all just going to ignore the night that Jane and Jade spent three hours straight seeing how many lyrics to American Pie they could remember? Now, with the input of John Egbert, blowhard extraordinaire, I can re-evaluate my hobbies and settle into a routine with a more significant end goal, like being a glorified chai wallah for someone who’d much rather be left alone. Really, John, you do so much here, and I’m glad to see you’re encouraging this kind of behavior in your peers.”

  
  


He rolls his eyes and blows a fistful of plucked grass into Dirk’s lap.

  
  


“Seriously dude, what’s with the seeds?”

  
  


“ . . . Can you think of anything better we should be doing?”

  
  


John smiles at Dirk's slip of the word 'we' and tents his fingers. Hums. Clicks his tongue.

  
  


“Hmm. Y’know, maybe I could?”

  
  


* * *

  
  


It’s infuriating honestly.

  
  


Years, foolishly spent, trying to cultivate something so  _ specific.  _ Be more like Jane, be shrewder, be bolder, be strong. Be like Jake, be kind, be hopeful, be lenient. Years, he spent with them, trying to find some god damned idealized middle ground, trying to rewire them, rebuild them from the ground up. Like he had a right to judge what made a person good or not. Like he had a leg to stand on or an eyelash to bat.

  
  


Then he met John and Jade and realized all the work had been done for him and he could have just shut up and let his friends live their lives unhindered.

  
  


* * *

  
  


“So! Yes, John, to answer your question, technically, all plants are gay!” She tucks away the tulip bulbs she was using to demonstrate some rather crude metaphors and brushes the dirt onto her skirt.

  
  


“Wow, I guess Dave was right then! Nature  _ is  _ super gay.”

  
  


“Yes! Nature is gay!”

  
  


“Okay, but I think we got a little bit off track here?” He prompts.

  
  


“To be honest I don’t even remember what we were talking about.” Jade punctuates her sentence with a literal bark of laughter.

  
  


“JEEZ! I have to do EVERYTHING! I was asking about space, remember?”

  
  


“Oh! Right! Space! My thing!”

  
  


“This reminds me of that time you had that conversation with me and Dave sprite about how light does different stuff when you’re looking at it or not? Um... the, multi-slot experience?”

  
  


“John… we didn’t quite get that far. Remember? But I think you're talking about the double slit experiment!”

  
  


“Oh. Right.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


_ Baby steps. _

  
  


John, with three years of wrong memories, can count every time Jade body slammed him into a wall. Most of those a result of trying to brush her matted mess of hair, a truly Sisyphean task that ended only when one managed to tire the other out. It came out in John’s favor roughly half the time, and no matter how often he reminded her that if she did it every day it wouldn’t hurt, the lesson never took.

  
  


Of course, one broken nose and bruised cranium after the other, he hadn’t learned his lesson either.

  
  


Point being, people are hard, and learning to deal with them is more building up a tolerance than anything else, for both parties. Even if it takes another three years of bad coffee and worse jokes, he fully intends to draw Dirk out of himself and into the crowd. He can't think of anything better to do with his time.

  
  


* * *

  
  


There’s something deeply, deeply wrong with Dirk Strider. He only becomes aware of the extent of this problem recently, by seeing the people around him go about their day to day lives. Aradia, for all her morbid fandango and time among the bones, speaks to his friends with more ease than he can manage. Terezi, Sollux, Kanaya, all the same. Alienated can’t be the proper word when people from another planet don’t fit the bill.

  
  


He is, quite intentionally, making sure it stays that way. He wanders further away from civilization each day and after weeks of telling people to leave him be they’ve finally started to respect his wishes and he finds himself, far too often, alone.

  
  


Dunbar’s Number is a theory which states that a human being, on average, is capable of maintaining somewhere between 100 and 250, often simplified as 150, social relationships. Some argue that this is the source of mankind’s bigotry, and that pigeonholing peoples of a specific common trait reduces the significance of that entire group to the emotional burden of a single person. When there are exactly 8 other members of your species in existence, this doesn’t matter at all.

  
  


Dirk’s brain gnaws on itself as he tries to think of a reason to go back. Dirk’s brain, kindly provides, in it’s typical fashion, a piece of advice.  _ You’re just waiting to see how long it takes for them to stop looking for you. _

  
  


It’s times like these he can almost bring himself to miss Hal’s omnipresence. A proxy was quite cathartic for thoughts like these. At least the AI had a fitting end – his 13 year old psyche would never want anything less than to go down in a blaze of glory as part horse-man alien.

  
  


His phone vibrates, and he grits his teeth as he looks at the new picture Vriska just posted, of her with Jade, Roxy, and Terezi playing the odd and disproportionately violent version of troll pictionary they’re all fond of, complete with ceremonial scimitar. After three days of ignored pesters, they stopped inviting him. Had they asked him in person, he would have said no. He knows, deep down, he would have hated being there while the girls shrieked over each other trying to guess Terezi's scribbles as 'obedience to the Empress and all her glory'. He's just not sure if he would have been more miserable there, or right here, alone in the hole he keeps digging himself deeper into.

  
  


The trees start rustling in the wrong direction and Dirk takes the next two seconds before John condenses to compose himself.

  
  


“Diiiiiirk!” he chimes. “Dirk!”

  
  


“What do you want, John?” So far the only person who hasn't stopped looking is John. Dirk's not sure how to feel about it.

  
  


“Nothing. I am just here to make sure you aren’t moping.”

  
  


“And what if I am?”  _ And why should you care? _

  
  


“It looks to me,” Says John, “like that is  _ exactly _ what you are doing.”

  
  


“Just fuck off for once, okay? Why are you always up my ass? Buy a guy dinner first, I'm gonna be sore either way with how hard you've been riding me so I might as well get something out of it.”

  
  


“Jeez! There you go with the dumb mopey nonsense again! I am trying to be NICE and you’re just yelling at me like a huge prick!” John stands to gain nothing from these confrontations, as far as Dirk can tell.

  
  


“I don’t  _ want  _ you to be nice to me!” Dirk yells. “I’m beginning to think you inherited Jake’s penchant for not knowing how to read a fucking room because I’ve been trying to not-so-subtly hint to you for the past month and then some that you’ve been overstepping so thoroughly you’ve just about stepped right  _ over  _ overstepping off of the cliffside and into the abyss of actively malicious harassment. And yet, still, you keep tracking me down no matter where or how far I go to avoid  _ you _ specifically.”

  
  


“Nope,” Is all John says in rebuttal. “That’s not true.” Dirk has never wanted to punch someone more in his entire life than he does right now, but he seen John take a brick wall to the face once or twice so he's not confident a punch would accomplish anything.

  
  


“Which part?”

  
  


“I know you like to act all tough! And that’s okay, I mean, I don’t get it, but I guess if it makes you feel better about yourself then it’s cool by me, but. I couldn’t find you unless you wanted to be found.”

  
  


“What do you mean?” Dirk asks. John just shrugs.

  
  


“The Breeze. It takes me where I need to go. I don’t really, pick and choose. I just kind of end up places. It is like being a precog sort of but instead of knowing places I just go there and don't know anything. So I guess not like being a precog at all actually? But still pretty cool!”

  
  


“No one benefits from this, John. I want to be left alone and unless you have some sort of humility kink, this can't be doing anything for you either. Can’t you think of anything better you should be doing?”

 

“Hmm. I totally have something better for us to do! Let's go play troll scrabble. We found some extra stockades so now more people can play.”

  
  


Dirk thanks him for the offer and declines.

 

* * *

  
  


Teeth clenched tight, John’s tongue pokes around the inside of his mouth and his hands twist around each other into soft knots while he thinks of something to say.

  
  


“Y’know, Dirk,” is all he can come up with. “I'm trying to help here, I really am. I don’t really think it’s normal to be . . . sad, all the time.” If his skin weren't so dark, he'd be bright red from the ears down from the tension of the conversation. He's not good at this, not really. He's not the 'analyze your feelings' types of friend, he's the pep talk friend. Dirk does not respond to pep talks. Dirk does not respond to positive attention.

  
  


“I’m not.” And there’s nowhere else they could possibly go from there. He is out of Friendship Cards to play.

  
  


* * *

  
  


John is a kind man who was raised by a kind man, who was in turn raised by a kind woman, who was raised by a huge fucking bitch. Three generations of kindness have made  _ very  _ little progress, so for lack of knowing anything else, John elects to go back a generation farther and channel the tumultuous teachings of The Colonel. For good measure, he adds a pinch of Crockercorp flair.

  
  


He enlists a very enthusiastic Jane that afternoon.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Dirk isn’t sure whether he should be annoyed or belittled, so he settles for a concoction of frustration that falls somewhere in the middle of the two. The bucket perched on his uncharacteristically ajar door

is nothing short of ostentatious, and completely lacking in any of the class or finesse he’d expect from Jane. No, this has John written all over it.

  
  


He drags a stray chair over to the door and delicately lifts the bucket from its perch. Or, at least tries to. As opposed to being precariously balanced it holds steadfast. He stares at the water inside and spends the next hour chiseling the offending object off of his door with a sword, actually chipping the piece of shit on the dried superglue.

 

He makes no mention of it, and pretends very aggressively that he didn’t count each and every drop that splashed out onto his shirt.

  
  


* * *

  
  


John spent a good few years in public school. Dirk did not. Anyone who has ever attended a public school can attest to the following fact: if someone is trying to get a rise out of you, the absolute worst thing you can do to them is ignore it.

  
  


As previously mentioned, Dirk Strider did not attend a public school.

  
  


Things escalate  _ rapidly _ .

  
  


* * *

  
  


John isn’t surprised that Dirk retaliates but he is surprised it comes so quickly. Dave sprite, on the ship, had been intent on pretending to be above his hijinks to an absolutely infuriating degree, and when he had finally caved the results had been nothing less than insulting and disastrous. Dave sprite reminds John of Dirk a lot, actually, both of them trying to live up to some imaginary better self that they’re dumb enough to think they have to be. He’s happy that Dave sprite is Davepeta now.

  
  


Maybe all Dirk needs to talk him down from his own ledge is a balancing personality? He can't quite think of anyone who fits the bill, though. Someone nice like Jake, and take charge like Roxy, and bold and unyielding like Jane.

  
  


John ponders this and other things while he spends the evening putting the pieces of his ransacked room back together, trying to identify which of the frogs are Jade's stray beanies and which are actually living creatures. This all made very difficult by the brand new spiderweb cracks in his glasses.

  
  


* * *

  
  


“Well  _ someone  _ has to do it!” Jade says to John one day when Dirk is walking by the living room into the kitchen and they’re talking, as per the usual, in voices much louder than necessary for indoors.

  
  


“Yeah, but . . . maybe not, like, right now?”

  
  


“The sooner the better though. I don’t want anything going wrong.” He can hear the frown in her voice before he’s close enough to see the slouch in her ears. It gets easier.

  
  


“I am just saying, Jade, with everything you told me about outer space it does not seem that urgent?” John prompts her.

  
  


“This is just precautionary! There’s a lot on the line here, John.”

  
  


“I know,” he says, as Dirk opens the fridge and retrieves a can of the sweet, melony soda the carapacians produce. “I just-”

  
  


He stops paying attention to the conversation when a jet of pure, carbonated spite coats his face.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Dirk’s been coming home to a made bed and folded laundry each night lately and he doesn’t have a doubt in his mind who is responsible. John is going into his room and  _ rooting through his things  _ and  _ nothing  _ will make him stop.

  
  


John’s room is always immaculate, in comparison to the company he keeps at least. It’s lived in, but never anything that could be categorized as messy. Perhaps a particularly nitpicky individual would characterize it as untidy or cluttered, but it’d be a stretch.

  
  


Dirk is intimately familiar with this - more so than he’d ever wanted to be - but sometimes choosing the untrodden path means coming across new scenery.

  
  


Outside of his own bedroom or the more overgrown outskirts of the city, John’s room is where Dirk spends the most of his time, simply just trying to come up with new and inventive ways to ruin his day. Most of John’s plays can be traced back to his quite literal book of tawdry tricks - the daunting text penned by none other than the benignly racist Colonel Sassacre himself. John’s never settled for just that, though.

  
  


Dirk thinks about yesterday when John had him pick a card. It had been the ace of spades. John had told him this much correctly. He had then asked Dirk if he was interested in a game of fifty two pickup. Dirk had declined this gracious offer. Following that, John had asked  _ him  _ to hold the deck of cards. He’d done so, suspiciously, while John held his face in the concentrated scrunch of someone who was rattling through his sylladex.

  
  


The pie came out almost -  _ almost -  _ before Dirk could react, but with one swift move he ejected his katana from his speccibus and sliced the offending pastry in half before it could do any real damage. The lemon meringue semicircles clatter to the ground. Along with the deck of cards that had previously occupied Dirk’s hands.

  
  


John laughs and walks away just before Jane’s dad walks in, and Dirk is left with pretty much no choice but to clean up the mess after a few seconds of eye contact with the only adult he’s ever known. He was, honestly, a little bit terrifying.

  
  


As he starts stacking the cards he notices they were  _ all  _ the ace of spades.

  
  


* * *

  
  


John brings Dirk his coffee again that morning. It’s been days (weeks? No one’s really counting) since the last time he’s done it, and Dirk doesn’t even consider drinking it.

  
  


“Dirk, can I ask you something?”

  
  


“You just did.”

  
  


“Don’t be a douche.”

  
  


“In that case, no, you can’t ask me something.”

 

John grabs the cup (green, with flowers) from Dirk’s hand and takes a long sip from it before getting up to walk away.

  
  


“Okay then! Nevermind.” He rolls his eyes and flips Dirk a rude hand gesture as he goes.

 

* * *

  
  


That night John’s room is  _ beeping. _

  
  


He can’t find the source. It doesn’t come from the same place consistently and it’s nowhere near rhythmic enough to tune out.

  
  


He sleeps with Jade in her room that night, curled up against her stomach like he's done so many times before and she never got to experience.

  
  


* * *

  
  


“Can Dirk come?” John asks Jade and Calliope and Roxy one day when they’re fidgeting with the transportalizer that Jade shrunk down, trying to make sure it still works - just in case; they don’t plan on needing it.

  
  


“Dirk?” asks Jade. “Why Dirk? John I know you’re trying but he doesn’t seem to like you very much…”

  
  


“Listen! Dirk and I are going to be super great friends soon, you will see. And I will rub it in your smug face because I was totally right and you were wroooong!”

  
  


She sticks out her tongue at him. “Does he even  _ want  _ to come? And seriously, why?

  
  


“Well, uh,” he admits. “I was gonna ask him earlier, but he was being a huge dick, so I just left instead. And why not!”

  
  


“ _ Because,  _ John! The more people we have the more difficult everything is gonna get! It was originally just supposed to be me and Callie in case you don’t remember that.”

 

“C'mon, Jade! I am SO CLOSE. Please?”

 

“In that case,” She says. “Maybe you shouldn't come! John, I know what you're trying to do but seriously, if you have stuff to take care of here but you really don't have-”

 

“I don't have anything to take care of here, Jade, and you know it. Everything here is taking care of itself just fine!! And even if I don't  _ have  _ to but  _ I want to.  _ And I think it could be good for Dirk. C'mon, we can seat five, it just might be cramped.”

  
  


“Well, I personally think it could be a wonderful idea, John!” Says Calliope, while Roxy nods in agreement. “I don’t see the harm in bringing along one more friend if he would like the experience. I for one would enjoy spending more time with him.”

 

“Yeah, poor guy has been mad stressing. I kinda think it'd be nice to take him around the block. He could be like, our mascot. Team cheerleader.” Roxy says.

  
  


“Hmm… Well if Callie and Roxy are okay with it! Then I guess you can at least ask him.”

  
  


“Thanks Jade!!”

  
  


* * *

  
  


“Heeeey Dirk!” John shouts, interrupting Dirk’s tortuously brief period of time where he was left the fuck alone.

  
  


“What, John, what do you want?” He sighs. “Although initially your complete insistence to hover somewhere inside my sphere of perception making noise at me was somewhat charming, I’m beginning to become a bit drained. Having to spend my remaining days with the constant lingering threat of your continued presence is comparable to PTSD, and in fact may be a symptom of my development of this disorder.”

  
  


“Do you want to go on a trip with me?”

  
  


“. . . Where?”

  
  


“Everywhere!”

  
  


“What are you talking about?” Dirk asks.

  
  


“Okay so uhhh . . . anyway. So we have Earth 2 and everything and that’s cool. But we also have the entire rest of this universe to explore! And, um, Jade figured that we should probably look into that sooner rather than later, just in case there is an evil alien armada or something? I have to admit I'm not super clear on the reasoning here! So her and Callie were going to go start mapping things out and try fly to other planets and stuff. And then Roxy said, 'Hey! Maybe I should come!' because she knows how to navigate the voidey stuff and Jade and Callie said okay. And then I complained until Jade said I could tag along, and also Callie said you could come too.” Is his explanation.

 

“. . . Why on earth would I go on this trip you?”

 

John actually balks a little bit at this, Dirk's cold, dry refusal burning like salt on ice.

 

“I know you're new to the whole being a person thing, but what you're  _ supposed _ to say when rejecting someone is 'No thank you, John, but I am honored you thought of me and also, we should be friends now'. Or, at least maybe just 'no' would have been enough.” John snaps at him.

 

“No, I-” He swallows as he searches for the right words, the right tone. “I mean. I'm literally asking – why me? It seems like everyone has a very specific reason for being included in this. Two space players and a void player – that's the NASA dream team obviously. And you whined your way in so that's that explained. But why me? What untapped resource could I possibly offer here?”

 

“Dude, I don't know. It doesn't really matter a ton, I'm probably just gonna be making sure they remember to eat.” John pauses and cringes for a moment. “I'm gonna have to be back on hairbrush duty with Jade since Rose isn't coming. I am pretty sure you'll find something to occupy your time.”

 

“But-”

 

“Dirk do you want to tag along on the coming of age space teen road trip or not!”

 

“Yeah, okay, count me in.”

 

“Cool! I'll tell Jade! Start packing.” John grins like a maniac and lifts Dirk up from the midsection, spinning him around nauseatingly fast.

 

“What do I-” Dirk begins, but John's already dissipated and flown off. “-pack.”

 

* * *

 

John stirs the soup while Dad carves the chicken and Jane checks on her literal buns in the oven. He finds himself looking back at the two of them more so now than ever, just in case he doesn't get another chance later.

 

They're having a big, classic Sunday dinner for their last day on Earth 2 (Earth Harder).

 

“JOHN.” Terezi shouts from the dining room table, where a few people with nothing to do in the 10 minutes or so before the food's ready like to linger. “JOHN! I know you're in there, stop ignoring a lady it's not polite. Your soup needs more basil. I can smell the bland from all the way out here.”

 

“Shut up!” He shouts. “My soup is good!”

 

“Your soup is  _ shit  _ John.”

 

“This is a non issue because all plants taste the same.” Dave declares with a sense of finality from his seat at the table. “Doesn't matter if it's basil, parsley, oregano, thyme, or some of Dirk's fucking  _ kale  _ he planted everywhere, putting more plants in some boiling meat juice ain't gonna make it taste any better than the meat juice is already makin' it edible in the first place. Cooking one-oh-one.”

 

“Oh, gosh,” John scoffs, turning away from his stovetop to pantomime towards the dining room. “I wasn't aware everyone was such a soup expert here! If I had known we had world renowned soupsmiths in our VERY OWN DINING ROOM I would have made SURE you guys were on soup duty! How about you just go finish cooking the entire meal while you're at it.”

 

“Ok, sure. Cmon Rez, we've finally been called to action, our time is night. J-crew, tag out, team . . . uh-”

 

“-Team BRAINSPLOSION.”

 

“-Sure okay, team Brainsplosion is officially on the case and ready to kick soup's ass.”

 

The two of them make a mad dash for the kitchen door and they're  _ fast,  _ faster than John, and much faster than Jane. They are not lucky enough to be faster than Dad, who slams the door shut right before they can cross the threshold. Similar to vampires, no one is allowed to enter the Crockerberts' kitchen without permission. Except, ironically enough, Kanaya, who was given free access to the large stores of raw meat she and Jane had been using to feed the recently hatched larvae.

 

Dad shakes his head sternly at the door before simply stating “'We can't be having any of that.”

 

John and Jane snicker as they turn back to their work, and John can't help but roll his eyes at the basil resting on the surface of the soup. Some sneaky prankstress whose identity may never be known must have placed it there while he had his back turned.

 

It takes approximately three and a half more minutes to finish the food and get everything plated to be served. During this time the entrance to the kitchen emits a constant but inconsistent scuffling noise. Someone who is very likely Terezi, may or may not have been actually scratching at the door. Whoever or whatever it was assaulting the door had enough sense to clear the area before the food was rolled out. John, Jane, and their mutual father lay out enough dishes and hot food to feed a small army, or a few teenagers, and the horde descends.

 

Small talk naturally fills the gaps between bites with the ease that comes from not feeling like you  _ need  _ to say anything and just letting it happen.

 

“So you guys are leaving tomorrow morning, huh?” Vriska directs in Jade's general direction.

 

“Yep! Bright and early!”

 

“Okay but . . . . . . . . why?. I mean it's not like you have to be anywhere at any specific time. You could leave at noon if you wanted. Shit, you could get up right now and just leave and it wouldn't make a damn difference. I see negative eight reasons to wake yourself up with the cluckbeasts.”

 

“No, Vriska, you totally don't get it.” Roxy cuts in. “It's not about the time it is about making a cool exit and beginning the dawn of a new day on our epic quest. Duh.”

 

“Alright, alright. You've got me there Lalonde, I can appreciate the finer flairs of a quest.”

 

Dessert (key lime pie) and goodbye hugs (group, and individual) are bittersweet all around.

 

* * *

 

Calliope knocks gently on Dirk's door at sunrise the next morning and he, already awake and dressed, answers it promptly.

“Good morning Dirk!”

 

“Mornin, Callie. You ready? Because I sure as fuck am.”

 

“Yes! Or, well, no. Almost. Jade and I have a few last minute calibrations to make and then we're shipshape and Bristol fashion! In the meantime, could you wake John up?”

 

“Sure thing.” Dirk has run into the boy at this time of day enough to know that John should  _ very much be awake right now,  _ and the fact that he isn't on today of all days is more than a little startling. Dirk stops by the kitchen and grabs a cup of coffee. He knocks once on John's door. No answer. Twice. Nothing. He decaptchalogues the copy he had made of John's room key and shoves the door open with a warning shout of “John, if you're giving Rosie Palms a ride on the old bologna pony now is  _ really  _ not th-”

 

John is sitting on his bed crying. There's a tense second of eye contact before he whooshes his way up into the room's air vent. A small sob echoes with a metallic shuffling. It is perhaps one of the leaist expected and most disturbing things Dirk's seen in awhile. If Dirk had walked in and found John dead, his reaction would have been something along the lines of 'what plant did John try to eat this time', but crying was something entirely different.

 

“John. John get out of the air vent, we have to go.”

 

“No!”

 

“John. You have to get out of the air vent.”

 

“Make me, asshole.”

 

Dirk sighs and gives John's room a once over for something long enough and finally settles on a – a broom? In a carpeted bedroom?  _ Really _ , John? He grabs the damn thing without wasting time to contemplate it and whacks at the grate covering the air vent with the broom's bristles.

 

“Get OUT of the AIR VENT. Unless you need me to go interrupt what Jade's doing right now to get her in here, because believe me I am MORE than willing to watch that.”

 

A pause.

 

“God! Fine! Just. Give me a minute okay?” He pushes the air duct open from the inside and Dirk takes the opportunity to deliver a swift broom-boffing to his exposed face. Point Strider. He sniffles loudly once, twice. Dirk hears him take in a deep breath and he floats himself onto the ground, face first.

 

He looks pathetic,  lyinglaying there on the ground trying not to cry. For lack of anything else to do, Dirk pats his back delicately with the broom head.

 

“You, uh. You okay there pal?” He asks. John rolls over and props himself up on his elbows.

 

“I'm gonna miss everyone so much.”

 

“Then don't go. We'll be fine without you.”

 

“I know, I know,” he says. “I'm aware of how little I contribute, thanks, but you don't understand! I just – I can't leave Jade again, it's not fair to her.”

 

“What do you mean? You spent the past three years with her, didn't you? If anything it's Rose, Dave, and Jane you should be spending more time with.” John shakes his head after Dirk finishes talking.

 

“Different Jade. Roxy and I are from a different  timelinetime line , remember? The one where things went bad?”

 

“Oh, shit. Right. I was pretty much AWOL for most of those happenings. Had a little bit of stuff on my plate, it was a busy day.”

 

“So it happened like this: everyone died. Like you and Rose and Kanaya and Karkat, and also Vriska was dead for like forever at this point. You can ask Roxy or Terezi about all the dying stuff, I kind of showed up late to that mess. Terezi remembers because of her crazy mind powers.” John wipes his eyes one last time and picks up his backpack, slinging it over his shoulders. Stuff he didn't want to dig through his sylladex for, Dirk guesses.

 

“Wait slow down. How did everyone die?”

 

“Umm . . . I don't know. Stabbed I think? I saw a lot of people get stabbed. Like I said though, I wasn't there! Ask Terezi!” His cavalier tone about the massacre Dirk has heard mentioned in passing is a little disturbing. John talks like he had a particularly eventful trip to the grocery store, not like he had to watch his friends bleed out in the dirt on an unfamiliar planet. Come to think of it, outside of today's breakdown, which seemed to end as quickly as it started, John has never reacted to any of what's happened to him with much but passive optimism and complete mental disconnect.

 

But, Dirk does not want to ask Terezi about  _ anything _ . Dirk finds her complete lack of boundaries slightly more distressing than John's or Jake's. He patiently awaits for John to start talking again.

 

“So anyway,” John continues. “I talked to my Denizen, and he said I had to make a choice. I could fix things, but there'd be suffering for it, or I could let this timeline exist and just keep doing stuff. Terezi sent me back in time and I punched Vriska in the face and also messed around with some stuffed animals, I think I accidentally made Dave and Karkat gay with some weird butterfly effect though. They're happy at least so I am going to call that a win!”

 

“I'm going to just ignore half of this for now. What does any of this have to do with Jade? None of this is particularly illuminating regarding your relationship with her, and if anything gives me a little bit more insights to you misconceptions about both time travel and gay people.”

 

“ . . . Well, that's the thing. In MY timeline – the 'everybody dies' timeline – Jade and I spent three years on the ship together with Dave Sprite. But the suffering Typheus talked about was never supposed to be mine! It was Jade's! Which was stupid and dumb and unfair. So Typheus killed the John and Dave Sprite in this timeline and Jade and Nanna had to spend that time alone.”

 

“Oh. That doesn't quite seem like the BFD you're making it out to be. Being alone with a kindly grandma, and, from what I've gathered, a bunch of salamanders, doesn't seem like too bad of a lot in life. If you want to stay here with everyone else, I'm sure she won't mind.”

 

“But  _ I  _ mind!” He huffs. “Jade's my best friend, and my  _ sister, _ and I have three years worth of memories of us having a good time that she didn't get to have. I promised her back then that I wouldn't just ditch her and I still mean it.” John straightens shoulders and steels himself. His hands glow whiteblue for a moment as his form flickers ever so slightly as he tries to readjust and prepare himself for company. Dirk grits his teeth, praying for a less awkward day than the morning would suggest. He tries to calm himself down as he picks up the mug of coffee and hands it to John.

 

“Let's get going.”

 

Their hands touch, just briefly, barely any contact what all, and Dirk  is for a moment twenty six years old and punching in Roxy's phone number near tears (but not quite there yet) because Dave hasn't been sleeping anymore and so neither has he, god that kid is such a fucking  _ problem _ literally all the time and Hass Harley  _ died  _ that morning – Dirk jumps back, startled by the overload, like static electricity, like lightning in rain. John’s eyes are wide and dark though his glasses. Dirk can't help but stare as John opens his mouth to speak and the colored light around him fades.

 

“Did you j-”

 

“We should go, Dirk.” John grabs Dirk by the wrist and leads him out into the living room, a few stray drops of coffee staining the beige carpeting on the way.

 

* * *

 

The plan was simple: Take John's beat up Nissan Altima, use some space majjyks on it to make it a bit roomier than your typical four door sedan, and then use even  _ more  _ space majjyks from there to slingshot it between planets at near lightspeed. Of course, taking the distance between solar systems into account, which could be anywhere between one and one billion light years, they were going to need a little bit of help even on that front. That's where Calliope came in. The muse, in all her benevolence, eased the transition with just the teensiest wrinkle in the fabric of reality, compacting the vacuum of space and temporarily folding it in on itself, moving the celestial bodies as close together as they could safely get.

 

In only a matter of hours,  _ peanuts  _ in the grand scheme of things, they find themselves at their first destination. When they land, John puts down the parking break and makes sure to turn off the headlights. The doors lock with a click and a chirp. No one can bring themselves to tell him that all of this is actively unnecessary. A slight dizziness and lurching of their stomachs is the only thing that signifies the universe warping, twisting itself back into its natural shape without Calliope holding it in place.

 

“Wow,” is the first word a human being says on this particular planet, and that human is Roxy, and this particular planet they name Earth 4: Live Free Or Die Earth. The second person to speak is Jade.

 

“I'm just saying, if we're gonna name planets after die hard movies we should at least go in order!”

 

“Okay, but, like. Counterpoint. I can't remember what the third Die Hard movie was called.” Says Roxy.

 

“I'm... quite honestly not sure what the series is about so I suppose I can't be very helpful in this discussion either way. If it helps, I think Live Free Or Die Earth is a supremely fun name for our new planet!”

 

“Yeah, I can't remember what the third one was called either? It was, um. Either Die Hard With A Vengeance or A Good Day To Die Hard. I think.” John answers.

 

“I feel like Earth 3: Either Die Hard With A Vengeance Or A Good Day To Die Hard is a bit too wordy for a good planet name. It's just, long and cumbersome. We'd end up either calling it just 'Earth 3' which is, pardon my French, the lamest fucking thing since a duck missing both flippers, OR we'd have to abbreviate it to some tongue twister of an acronym? E3EDHWAVOAGDTDH? That's absolutely unpronounceable. The only kind of people who would name things long, gibberish acronyms and expect people to remember and understand them is a sadistic fuck who shouldn't be given the power of naming anything, ever, but especially an entire planet. We might as well just name it a long string of numbers followed by a hyphenated letter at that point. 42069-dash-Q.”

 

“Well okay you have a point there Dirk,” Jade admits. “But that's not how acronyms work! You're not supposed to abbreviate the little words. Soooo actually it'd be? E3EDHWVGDTGH. Which is also a stutid fucking acronym. I guess we're just gonna call it Earth 4?”

 

“No!” John and Roxy both object at the same time.

 

“You gotta say THE WHOLE NAME or it aint even funny, S M god damned H!” Roxy says, shaking her head.

 

“Okay okay fine gosh! We will name it Earth 4: A Good Day To Earth Hard.”

 

“Nooo, Jade that's not it either,” John sighs. “A Good Day To Die Hard was the  _ second  _ Die Hard movie. I'm at least 80% sure of that. This is Earth 4: Live Free Or Die Earth.”

 

“Wait, are we replacing 'Die' with Earth or 'Hard' With Earth?” Dirk asks.

 

“I think we are just pretty much winging it,” John admits. “Why don't we just call this one New Die Hard? We don't have any planets named after the first Die Hard movie yet.”

 

“But – if I'm interpreting the situation right,” Callie asks. “Would there need to be an initial Planet Die Hard in order for this one to be New Die Hard?”

 

“No, old Die Hard was the movie. New Die Hard is a planet.”

 

“That's stupid, John! Obviously Callie is right. There wasn't a New York or New Hampshire or New Jersey until there was a York, Hampshire, or Jersey. It should just be called Die Hard.”

 

“I don't know, Jade. John's got a point,” says Dirk. “If we just called it Die Hard people would be confused about whether we were talking about the movie or the planet.”

 

“I'm pretty sure people could figure it out with conte-”

 

“Y'know what kiddos?” Roxy interrupts. “Let's just vote on it. All in favor of calling the planet New Die Hard?” Her hand goes up, along with John's and Dirk's.

 

All opposed? Jade. Callie sheepishly avoids raising her hand.

 

“Callie, what about you, girl?”

 

“Oh, I think this is an issue best settled amongst you four! I don't want to intrude on this riveting discussion more than I already have.”

 

“Mmkay, I suppose I'll allow you to abstain. FOR NOW.” Roxy pats her on her head and kisses her cheek. Calliope's snakelike tongue slips out and flicks happily. “But I'm counting on you to be the tiebreaker when THESE two-” She points to John and Dirk “-are up to no good.”

 

“Don't lop me in with him, we're not even on the same level of terrible decisions. How long have you known me, Roxy? I've been nothing but a disaster the whole time.”

 

She shakes her head and clucks her tongue. “You're right, you're right. A'ight, well. That's three for and one opposed so the name passes with like, slightly hovering off the ground colors. May New Die Hard live on, amen and god bless.”

 

Jade nods solemnly and labels the planet on their maps.

 

* * *

 

The first night on New Die Hard they build a fire and cluster around it, eating the food Dad packed them. It is the only unnatural light for two hundred thousand miles in any direction.

 

* * *

 

The girls are off moving mountains, quite literally. The planet 'Darude – Sandstorm' is as arid as the name suggests, the only signs of life came from the mountains.

 

They're tall and pointed and eerily conical, like a witch's hat or an ice cream cone someone had licked too much. They jut out of the horizon with no build – no foothills or inclines easing the desert into the rock face. There's nothing but sharp, burning sand and harsh rock. The only vegetation in sight grows on the side of the mountains where the wind doesn't blow, the shade of the brown-green plants against the desert orange making them look to be cast in perpetually dramatic lighting.

 

Dirk and John watch through the windshield of the car as occasionally a plume of sand of hunk of rock will shoot up and land with crater of impact somewhere on the horizon line. Evidence that the girls are still in good health and off continuing their excavation.

 

The car sits dormant in the middle of the desert while they wait out one of the (Darude) sandstorms for which the planet was crudely named. Thanks to Dirk and Jade's recent additions to the vehicle, there's no chance of the battery dying even with the air conditioning on full blast and the wipers sweeping away sand at full speed. John has his phone hooked into the bluetooth and flips lazily through his large selection of video game music, orchestral arrangements, 80's glitterpop, and whatever else he managed to pick up along the way. He settles for something light and chiptuney and lets it play softly in the background while he lowers his seatback to match Dirk's elevation.

 

“Hey Dirk,” he asks, rolling onto his right side to face the passenger seat. “Wanna go see if the girls found any cave dwelling sand nomads yet?”

 

Dirk leans up just enough to peer over the dashboard and out the window.

 

“I can't. I'm . . . asleep.” He closes his eyes slowly and deliberately before rolling from his side to his back.

 

“Oh okay. I guess I'll just watch a movie then. Loudly. How about . . . hmm. Ooh! How about Crystal Skull?”

 

Dirk sits up abruptly. “No. God, no. Troll Jegus and his heavenly pantsuit  _ no. _ ” He mumbles a few raps and whips an external hard drive out of his sylladex, catching it before it shatters through John's windshield. “Let's watch something decent for once. Pick something, they're all good. Or the good kind of bad, but I digress. The real problem here is your specific taste in movies that are either A: insultingly terrible, or B. so impossibly mediocre that they're not even worth watching to make fun of. It's honestly impressive. Jake's taste is completely nondiscriminatory but you seem to actively seek out the worst so called 'movies' mankind has every been capable of churning out. It's like you're a-”

 

“Hmm . . .” John's already decaptchalogued his Crosbytop Lunchmuffs and is now browsing through the hard drive's vast contents on the holograph screen they project.

 

“You're not even hearing this are you. I could say anything and you'd just mindlessly say something affirmative.”

 

“Uh-huh, totally.”

 

“Will you marry me. I don't have a ring, but I'll be good to you.”

 

“Sure sure, just a sec.”

 

“Oh, well you've hardly left me any time to plan. What will I wear? John?”

 

“OH! What?” He finally reacts, tuned to the sound of his own name moreso than anything else. “Sorry, I was distracted. What's up?”

 

“You agreed to marry me. I won't hold you to it if I get to keep the dowry. You pick something?”

 

“Yeah! We should watch the Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff movies. Movoies? Mvoeis? Whatever stupid garbage Dave came up with. The thing is though, I can't tell which order you're supposed to watch them in . . .”

 

Dirk cracks his knuckles and grabs John's holographic mouse, clicking to load the movie. He plays Hella Jeff and Sweet Bro: The Movie first.

 

“Now  _ that, _ ” He says. “Is a  _ highly  _ debated topic, and let me tell you why everyone on the internet is wrong about it but me.”

 

* * *

 

They discover a frozen planet, solid ice perhaps all the way through, hundreds of thousands of cubic miles of frosted glacier. They find a star burning bright green. They find a planet with nine moons, all orbiting in a perfect line, their rotations in eternal lock-step with their planet. They measure the space between stars and the distance around them, and chart the orbits and rotations of their planets. They spend one day in spring and the next in autumn. They melt the snow off of their roof with the heat of volcanic beaches, and clean the mud off the windshield with the torrential downpour of storms that could span nations, and generations. They build tree forts and tear them back down for firewood. They find deserted buildings in ruined plains littered with ash, and in a neighboring decrepit forest, they find the temple of the Frog.

 

* * *

 

“This isn't fair.”

 

“John-” Jade tries to calm her brother down but he's not having it.

 

“No! This isn't FAIR Jade! This CAN'T be here because if this is here then-”

 

“John, calm down.” She clasps his shoulder tightly.

 

“STOP telling me to CALM DOWN! I am SORRY that I am ANGRY but I think I sort of have  _ every right to be pissed off right now.  _ This is stupid. This is so dumb and unfair and I hate it.”

 

It's Calliope who steps up next. “It already happened, John.” She shakes her head solemnly. “There's nothing left to do but wait until the custodians come to re-terraform the planet.”

 

“She's right,” Adds Roxy solemnly. “You saw the meteor holes. I mean, we kinda figured shit was fucked here by the huuuuuge chunk taken outta the planet but I just didn't think it'd be . . .”

 

Dirk finishes the lingering sentence. “Sburb.”

 

John's clenched fists flash blue and he unloads the hammers from his strife specibus – Fear No Anvil wielded in one hand, and the Vrillyhoo Pop-o-Matic in one hand. He takes a deadly swing at the base of the temple and it  _ ripples,  _ the stone foundation vibrating with the force of the swings and warping in a very un-stonelike way. It stands, a shatter half formed along its median, perfectly frozen in time as a result of the hammers' magical properties.

 

John looks fucking  _ pissed.  _ Dirk thinks, embarrassingly enough, that he's never looked better.

 

Jade slowly approaches him, and rests her hand comfortingly on his shoulder. They both jolt for a second, and make brief but meaningful eye contact. The angry glow around John starts to fade with his sister's soothing gesture. Almost. Her other arm whips up in a burst of green aurora borealis, and a meteor from a nearby crater shoots into the air with speed comparable to it's initial landing. She brings it down on the temple with cruel precision, and time around the monolith starts again as the meteor crashes into the Frog, turning it and its foundation into a cloud of gray dust. The debris fly in every direction, but stop before they can get within an inch of the twins. They disperse, flying outward and even crashing to the ground, stopped by some invisible wall of energy.

 

The power suits the two of them – they wear their magic like they were born into it moreso than anyone else in their party. Other than Rose, Dirk supposes, who uses her Light powers in a much less ostentatious way. But Dave avoids time travel like the plague, Jane heals when necessary, Jake still barely has a grasp of  _ what  _ his powers do let alone when and how to use them, Roxy uses hers mostly just for making snack foods or classic video games, Aradia and Vriska don't do much in the way of monumental magic, and it's not like Dirk himself has had any souls to reap as of late.

 

And then there's John and Jade, standing short and dark and messy haired, crackling with elemental energy that fills the area with the scent of ozone. There's truly something properly  _ godlike  _ about it, in a way he hasn't seen before, something primordial in the way they carry themselves. They're the kind of people who you'd actually expect to have seen the birth and death of universes. In a heartbeat they could raze forests, drain oceans, crush moons into powder, slay millions of people or conquer galaxies. And standing there, Dirk is so very sure it has never occurred to either of them to do these things.

 

Roxy hollers, and Jade swoops her in for a kiss while chunks of meteor start to burn the forest around them.

 

* * *

 

They're 7 weeks into their crusade before Dirk thinks to ask when they're going home. Jade says offhandedly that they'll go back when they have something to show for it. A half asleep Roxy rests her head in Jade's lap and Jade uses it as a table, balancing her notebooks in Roxy's hair while she scrawls down the equation's they'll need for tomorrow.

 

* * *

 

“Okay, Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff: Hte Mobie was pretty crude, but I gotta say I think this one is taking the cake for being the grossest thing I've seen. And that includes watching Jake play tonsil hockey with your decapitated head and that was  _ really nasty, dude.  _ What was Dave thinking?”

 

Jade laughs so hard that milkshake comes out of her mouth and nose at the same time. She manages to choke out “You did  _ what? _ ” before focusing her energy on hacking up the rest of her drink. Roxy is much more quiet, trying to politely hold in the laughter in response to Dirk's horrified face. Calliope just gazes upon the two girls, doe eyed and with a rare unguarded grin. On anyone else a mouth filled with that many fangs would be threatening.

 

“You saw that?” Dirk gasps. “Shit, how. What?”

 

“Time travel dude!!! Hahaha, what was even up with that anyway?”

 

“Okay first of all, fuck you that's not how time travel works. Second of all, fuck you again, I had a plan.”

 

“That is totally how time travel works, I know it because I did it. I time travelled all the way back to the troll planet, and my house before the game, and I saw your head get it on with Jake in front of an active volcano. I have experienced many walks of life, dude.”

 

“Okay but that's  _ really  _ not how time travel works.” The conversation has moved on. Roxy is already describing in grand detail a picturesque scene. The medium right after the four of them had entered and stood together

 

“So like, Dirk's standing there with an empty bucket of water and Jane is YELLIN' her head off, meanwhile Jake’s pointing at this fuckin' bloody head stump and he's also yelling' his head off. He's all, 'noooo I swear, the glasses made me do it, fiddle dee-dee' or however it is he talks. It was great. We made 'giving head' jokes behind Dirk's back for two month's. And bye we I mean I. Uh, guess that cat is out of the bag now. Lmao. Sorry Dirk.”

 

* * *

 

“What do heart powers even  _ do?  _ Something red.” John asks one day, completely out of the blue. Their campsite today is in the knot of a tree the size of a skyscraper. Jade insisted on it. Said she wanted to see how the squirrels felt when  _ she  _ moved in on  _ their  _ turf. Furry pieces of shit, thinking they own the place and can go wherever they want. They can fuck off! The kids dangle their legs off of the edge and play I-Spy with the canopy below, tossing pebbles into ponds and watching them splash as they talk.

 

Jade guesses, 'Is it that bird?'

 

“I'll show you mine if you show me yours,” Dirk says.

 

“Huh? And no, Jade.”

 

“The blue, glowy time travel majjyks. How do they work? How can you go back to things in different universes, different physical locations. That shouldn't be possible. You're jumping timelines.” He sternly avoids mentioning the day they left, when their hands touched, when Dirk's head filled with visions of another life.

 

“ _ That _ bird?”

 

“Oh! I don't know, really. I stuck my hand in a magic hole and now I have my zappy powers,” he pauses for a second. “Also, stop guessing birds because it's not a bird. What about you?”

 

“I'm the grim reaper mixed with Mr. Steal Yo Gurl.” Dirk answers.

 

“Oh, will you hush!” Says Calliope, with a shake of her head. “You're going to confuse the poor boy. Heart powers are powers of the soul. Similar to Mind or Time a journey of heart is a journey of the self. A prince of heart is one who destroys souls, or one who destroys using the power of a soul. It is really quite fascinating!”

 

“Destroys what, exactly?” John questions her.

 

“Well, anything I suppose. Anything capable of being destroyed. A building, a bond between two people, faith, sanity, a freshly baked pie. These are all things that could be destroyed by a fully attuned Prince of Heart. The physical aspect of Heart is the soul as an entity, but Heart is one of the more metaphysical aspects. Much of it's powers work more with how you can make them work, as opposed to any solid limitations. A soul is quite powerful and when properly harnessed and cultivated, the powers of the Self can be ferociously awesome.”

 

“Is it Dirk's terrible sunburn?”

 

“No offense babe, but you're a real nerd. Who plays an MMO and learns all the lore?” Roxy elbows a giggling Callie and fingerguns, pointing her hands into the air. “Just show me the bad guys and tell me who to kill for my loot. Pew pew pew!”

 

“Yes! It is Dirk's terrible sunburn.”

 

* * *

 

“Don't look so grumpy, Dirk! It's beautiful here,” John says, and he looks at Dirk warmly. The sun pours honey into the lake and Dirk and John dip their feet into the water to stave off the waning heat.

 

“I'd say it's one of my top ten lakes. Maybe top seven. 4/5 hats. Pretty good but not an outstanding enough lake to put me in a good mood.”

 

“That's impressive. Betcha I can change your opinion though,” John says, leaning in close.  _ Intimately _

close. Dirk can see the reflection of the sunset on his glasses, illuminating his eyes. John lets his gaze drag across Dirk's face, raking down from his furrowed brow to the freckles poking out of the shadow of his sunglasses. He rests his eyes somewhere around Dirks. “I bet I can make you think about this lake in ways you'd never  _ dreamed  _ of.”

 

He is doing this  _ completely _ on purpose and he's pretty sure Dirk damn well knows this.

 

“Oh,” Dirk swallows hard. His fingers instinctually tense and curl in on is palms and they crackle with pink energy, his body's apprehension releasing itself in whatever way possible. “Well then?”

 

John's a little bit less sure at this point.

 

In for a penny, in for a pound. He wraps his hands around Dirk's, and cringes a bit at the initial static shock, but he soldiers onward stands the two of them up, leaving divots in the sand. He lurches back and the air goes stone still. Dirk hadn't noticed it'd been even blowing before. This train of thought lasts for a microsecond before he's flung sideways by his wrists and a stiff breeze to skip across the lake's surface like a flat stone.

 

He seethes, hot enough John would swear he'd boiled the lake. In a fit of benign neglect for personal safety, he glides over the lake's surface to the spot where Dirk landed, and is currently staying afloat solely by the buoyancy of his spite.

 

“What the  _ fuck  _ was that for,” Asks Dirk, damply.

 

“I'm trying to cheer you up, jerk.”

 

“By  _ throwing me into a lake?”  _ He fumes, soddenly.

 

“Yes, duh, obviously that is what I tried which is why you are in the lake right now!  _ Jesus,  _ Dirk.” John flashes, flickering bluewhite to whiteblue to black again. “Why do you always have to make everything an ordeal? Most people 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> There you have it. I truly wish I had had the time to make this story into what I wanted it to be in terms of narrative, character development, and world building. But I just don't, and if I Do end up finishing any of my homestuck fics, it'll be A(NS)BLITDE, so you'll have to have this one is. If anyone is interested in remixing, continuing, adapting, etc. this fic feel free to just tack it on as an inspired work.


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